the blessing
I don’t know her name–not the sound of her voice, not even the shape of her smile. As it is these days, because of the mask she wears, her eyes—dark and determined and locked on mine–are all I know of her, those eyes and that hair, curling dark around her head in short, wild corkscrews. I know that she came here to pray; that she lifts her arms in worship like a child; and that we are sisters. God laughed when I asked for a sister and gave me millions, billions–a whole vast sea, too many to know all their names. Sometimes I think of this, the great crowd of witnesses, the people of every nation, language, and tribe surrounding the throne of God, and I gasp in wonder. I wonder what it will be like to be with all my sisters at once, all our brothers too, in the celebrating fellowship of the broken-redeemed, and I think, Now that’s a family reunion; that’s a joyful noise.
This woman, my sister, she turns to me; she holds my gaze like I hold Adam’s when I have something important to say. We are singing, but because of the masks, you wouldn’t know it to look at us. We stand at a safe distance, too far away to hear each other. We look like the truth: a couple of ailing women who–thirsty, thirsty, thirsty–happen to have found our way to the well. She reaches out her hand like she offers me a drink, and I know that in other times she would reach for me, would wrap her arm around my shoulders; she would hug me hard.
The Lord bless you
The Blessing
And keep you
Make His face shine upon you
And be gracious to you
The Lord turn His
Face toward you
And give you peace
It’s a blessing, the song, inspired by the blessing God used to teach Moses how to bless God’s people. My sister across the way, she points at me. The Lord bless you; the Lord keep you. I see you; God sees you; you are not, nor ever could be invisible.
May His favor be upon you
The Blessing
And a thousand generations
And your family and your children
And their children, and their children
I reach out my arms expansively toward her and she to me, and at first I feel like I should turn away, because it almost feels too close, the way that, even from a distance, we have zeroed in on each other. Mothers do so much comparing, so much critiquing, so much advising even when it’s unwanted, as though we have each figured out how best to do this thing, but finally the years bring us here, not knowing anything at all except that God’s favor changes everything for our families. We call out to God for each other: Please, shelter her children and their children and their children and their children. Build her family. Protect her family, please. It feels like an echo, a crescendo transcending time, as though generation upon generation of our mothers before reach toward us and with us and sing over each other. This, I realize, this family bigger than all our families, is our eternal inheritance.
May His presence go before you
And behind you, and beside you
All around you, and within you
He is with you, He is with youIn the morning, in the evening
The Blessing
In your coming, and your going
In your weeping, and rejoicing
He is for you, He is for you
He is for you, He is for you
He is for you, He is for you
He is for you, He is for you (I know, I know)
I can see it in her eyes: she means this. She has extended both of her arms and all of her fingers toward me; she stretches toward me, not just with her limbs but with her soul. She moves with the words, feeling them, proclaiming and visibly shaping the reality of God’s presence around me in every direction at every time, and as many times as the lyrics repeat and repeat and repeat God’s lavish attention and affection for me, she repeats the truth still more. I feel as though her spirit will continue to bless me, repeating those refrains, long after we have walked out into the cold night and bundled into our cars, after the crunch of glittery asphalt replaces the sound of the music.
In this thin space, we drift closer to heaven. Nothing hinders our love for each other, not even not knowing. We feel no need to compare with or speculate on or judge each other; it works in our favor, really, that all we know of one other is God’s love. I can’t tell you what she wears or how she speaks or whether or not she’s socially smooth. I haven’t seen any snapshots of her life, no glossy moments; I know nothing about her political views. I don’t know if she’s shy and careful or opinionated and bold, nor could I tell you where she was born, or the exact color of her skin, or who hurt her and when and how. I don’t know the ways she’s been kind and unkind; I don’t know what she’s like when she’s angry. All I know is that my sister is beloved and imago dei, and that every word I sing over her is true. I feel overjoyed, as though it fills and spills. And as she sings over me, I feel, more easily, the truth that God really does surround and fill and shelter me, and for the first time, I understand why, in ancient times, God’s people sought and received blessings like once-in-a-lifetime treasure. I feel touched with unearthly healing, and I can’t help but think that this must be the tiniest taste of what it will be to live together in heaven; to surround the throne in that great crowd. Only then, all the space that remains between us will disappear; all the masks–the cloth ones and the spiritual ones, will be gone.
After the song ends, after from the front they send us like they always do with those words, you are sent, I pass by her and flatten my hand against my chest, right over my heart. She signs I love you with one hand, and I smile and nod and open my hands toward her. You too. We could talk now, but really, we have no need for other words. We have said all the things there are to say.
